


Destiny in Your Hands

by gremlinquisitor (suchanadorer)



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/M, Mage Adaar - Freeform, Post-Judgment
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-19
Updated: 2019-04-19
Packaged: 2020-01-16 15:47:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,029
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18524644
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/suchanadorer/pseuds/gremlinquisitor
Summary: Bellial cut his chains with a flick of her wrist and left him standing before the throne when she’d turned away from his declaration, marching straight into her chambers and closing the door behind her. He was not the only one standing there with his heart laid bare, and she was not about to let the gawkers watch her crumble. Everything she has within the Inquisition, she has fought for, and she can not allow a single crack to show.





	Destiny in Your Hands

Bellial is sitting on her bed, knees drawn up to her chest, in darkness, staring out the open doors and past the balcony at the mountains beyond. There’s been a storm around Skyhold since she came back from Orlais, thunder rolling around the fortress even as she pardoned Blackwall, mixing with the grumbles and gasps of those who had assembled to watch her judge one of their own.

She hears the creak of the stairs when he comes in but doesn’t turn to look. She’s surprised it’s taken him this long to follow her. Bellial cut his chains with a flick of her wrist and left him standing before the throne when she’d turned away from his declaration, marching straight into her chambers and closing the door behind her. He was not the only one standing there with his heart laid bare, and she was not about to let the gawkers watch her crumble. Everything she has within the Inquisition, she has fought for, and she can not allow a single crack to show.

“Bell, you need to stop this.” His voice comes to her through the fog of her anger, as if he’s in other room and not at the top of her stairs. “You’re not finished yet, he’s still out there, and… and you’re scaring people, making it thunder like this.”

Purple-white lightning crackles down to the balcony, striking it without leaving a mark on the stone. “You don’t get to tell me what to do. And the correct form of address is ‘Inquisitor’.”

His coat rustles as he steps closer to the bed, and she has to fight to keep from turning to look at him. Bellial has worked hard on this anger, honing it to a fine point, and she’s not prepared to let it soften and melt yet. She hasn’t finished wielding it.

Thom--Blackwall, whichever he is-- clears his throat. “I would never presume to tell you what to do, my lady.”

“No, you wouldn’t, would you.” She curls her toes in on the blanket. It’s cold in the room, but she can barely feel it. “That’s the thing - you didn’t tell me to let you go to Orlais. You just left. You walked away to die and didn’t care what that would do to me.”

He has the decency to lower his head and look ashamed. “I did care,” he mumbles, taking a step closer. “I still care, Bellial. I told you that.”

“You also accused me of planning to have you shot.” And now she does turn to look at him, one foot sliding to the floor, the other still hugged to her chest. “Let me tell you, here and now, Thom Rainier. Blackwall. If anyone in this Inquisition is going to kill you, it’s going to be me.” She snarls as best she can, but her voice betrays her, cracking at the end. He makes a move towards her and she shakes her head, waving him off.

“That’s not what you do to someone you care about,” she continues. “You don’t leave them in the dark, alone, frightened. You take away everything they’ve come to trust, to--”

“This was my burden to bear.” His voices rises even as she fights to keep hers even. “I couldn’t ask that of you, of the Inquisition.”

Bellial surges to her feet, her dressing gown trailing behind her as she moves to stand in front of the open door. She needs the cold air on her skin, needs to feel the lightning spark in the air. “Don’t you know I would’ve fought off the entire Orlesian army to keep you from them? And you delivered yourself right into their hands.”

“I couldn’t let him die in my place. I couldn’t let anyone else die for me.”

He comes to stand beside her, and she lifts her chin and looks away. 

“No one else would’ve had to die,” She replies. “Look at where you’re standing. Do you really think that we had no other options available to us? The stroke of a pen, and your man was conscripted into the Inquisition. He’s a good soldier, and we need good soldiers. Now more than ever. We need good men.”

“I’m not a good man,” he protests. 

“No, you’re not,” she fires back. The sky crackles, and she turns to face him, folds her arms across her chest and shoots out her hip. “You’re selfish, obsessed with regaining some honor you think you lost--”

“I did lose it!” He yells, equal parts anger and desperation, as if he thinks there’s something here that she doesn’t understand.

“And that honor, with those people, was more important than your honor with me?” She leans down to look into his eyes, pointing off in some direction that might be Orlais, then stabbing at her chest with her finger. “Your place with me, in my heart. That was worth sacrificing, to swing from a rope in front of people who will not feel better when you’re dead.”

They each let out a frustrated sigh and turn away from the other. She tips her head back and breathes, trying to clear her head. She doesn’t want to say something that she’ll regret later, something that’s not true and thrown at him in anger. 

“I wish you hadn’t come to get me.” He’s standing with his arms crossed, and he looks almost like himself again, chest puffed up and eyes clear, full of intent. “I made my peace. I never wanted to let this affect the Inquisition. Now everyone will know that you’re corrupt.”

The laugh bubbles up inside her, and her throat hurts when it comes out, as if she’s coughed too hard or choked on a drink. “We’re an organization of heretics, led by a Vashoth mercenary mage, of all things!” She stalks towards him as she counts off on her fingers. “I’ve killed for coin, lived as an apostate my entire life, never so much as set foot inside a Circle. My closest advisers are, let’s see, right: a disgraced former Knight-Captain who followed a Commander who recommended genocide in Kirkwall, the Divine’s personal assassin, and poor Josie, trying to put out the fires we all start.”

“Do you have a point, Inquisitor?” He spits the word out, and she turns her head to glare at him out of the corner of her eye. She will not be made to feel like less by him. Not a chance. 

“Do you really think you’re the only one in the Inquisition who’s lying, who sees this as their new start? You are brave and noble and kind, and your past can’t change that. But how you acted, with me, running away… The man I fell in love with would never have run away like you did. Blackwall would have stood his ground and told me and let me help him, but he didn’t get the chance because the coward Thom Rainier dragged him off to die.”

Thunder booms so that the glass in the windows rattles, and she rakes a hand back through her hair.

“Is it corrupt to save the lives of good soldiers by conscripting them into the Inquisition instead of letting them hang? Is that really corruption? The Grey Wardens can conscript whoever they like, and you seem happy to be one of them!”

He frowns, something in the set of his brows softening, as if her pain is just now starting to register with him, as if he’s beginning to see the full consequences of his choices. “I don’t understand what you mean, Bell.”

“Inquisitor,” she snaps. He nods, resting his hands on the small of his back.

“I let Venatori sink a Qunari longship to save my friends. I traveled through time to save my friends. Conscripting your man and keeping you safe would’ve been the easiest thing I’ve done so far this week, and you didn’t even think to ask for my help.” 

Tears make her vision swim, and she lowers her head, pinching the bridge of her nose until her lower lip stops trembling and she trusts herself to speak again. “You care about honor more than I do,” she whispers. Outside the window, the thunder stills as quickly as it had started. “I’ll grant you that. I’m a mercenary; we have different rules.”

She turns away from him and walks to sit on the edge of the bed again. The fire in her is starting to go out, and she doesn’t want it to but she’s too tired to keep it lit, even though her anger is all that’s been protecting her from her pain. “But what good is any of this if I can’t use it to help those I care about most, those I love. Isn’t there honor in that? Is that really so corrupt?”

Boots appear in front of her, and she lifts her head enough to look up at him. 

“I do hate to see you cry,” he sighs.

“Then don’t look,” she growls. “Take your newfound freedom and go if you don’t want to see it.”

He furrows his brows as he looks at her. “You really would let me leave. I really am that free?”

“That’s what the word means,” she replies dryly, rolling her eyes to look away from him. “Obviously what I want you to do doesn’t matter, so you might as well just do what you want.”

He reaches out towards her cheek and Bellial sits back, hands falling into her lap. She glares at his hand, her gaze cutting up to his eyes until his arm falls back to his side. He’s lost that privilege for now.

“If I stay,” he starts, shifting his weight and looking down at his feet. “What happens to us?”

That’s the question she’s been asking herself since she found him. There was no way she could leave him there, even if it was tempting in the moment. He’d fallen to her knees in front of her and it had taken all her strength not to reach into the cell and whack his head against the bars so she could haul him back to Skyhold over her shoulder, leaving Cullen to deal with the Orlesians.

“Will you stay?” She wants him to, and she hates that she wants him to. All her life she’s been careful with her heart, and this one time she lets her guard down, lets someone in, and look what happens. But there’s a place inside her now that’s shaped like him, and if he walks away forever, she’ll collapse into it.

“I’d like to, yes.” He sighs. “I know what you said out there, but my destiny is still in your hands. I don’t know who Thom Rainier is anymore, but I know who Blackwall is, the Blackwall you-- Your Blackwall. He’s a man who loves you, and wants to keep fighting by your side, if you’ll have him.”

If this was one of Cassandra’s books there would be a tearful embrace, kissing, and a night spent together mending each other’s hurts. Life is so rarely like books, however, and so she stays sitting on her bed, elbows resting on her knees and her hands clasped out in front of her.

“From the moment I started to want anything out of this other than to survive, he was what I wanted. You.” Bellial shakes her head gently as she looks up at him, incredulous that she has to state it so plainly. “If you stay, you must promise me that you’ll never leave like this again. You know now that I will find you and bring you back. Your leaving would only delay our mission. Do you want that?”

“No, Inquisitor.”

She nods, not remotely satisfied, but enough for one night. “Good. Your things are still in the barn where you left them. I’ll be out early to check that you’re still there.”

He nods again, standing at rest, waiting to be dismissed. “Understood, Inquisitor.”

She sighs. “You can call me Bellial, Blackwall. Now go get some rest.”

He lingers for a moment, then steps away towards the stairs. “Thank you, Bellial. Good night.”


End file.
